How to celebrate National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
It was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day on April 12. I didn’t know about it until the morning, however I was fortunate enough to have bread and cheese in my house.
I wasn’t even looking for any inspiration for my Grilled Cheese, because butter, bread and cheese are like getting three stars in Candy Crush Soda Saga. Anything is just extra.
However I stumbled upon this video in my facebook feed, How to Make a New Jersey Grilled Cheese, from NJ.com. I was serendipitously inspired for I had scrapple at home.
This isn’t going to be a recipe but just a story about making a wee labor of love.
I came home from work and took down my iron skillet, turned on the burner to high and let it heat up. I returned to the refrigerator and took out butter, extra sharp cheddar, Colman's mustard and scrapple. After returning to the stove with my cold goodies, I lowered the heat to medium-high and added a pat of butter to the skillet to watch it melt. I snuck back to the pantry and grabbed my loaf of whole wheat bread.
I prepared the cheese, shaving off thick slices for the sandwich. I ended up with two pieces of cheese per slice of bread. This was going to be cheesy. I continued slicing as I worked off two pieces of scrapple about an 1/8th of an inch thick. I added them to the skillet and let them cook, wanting them to crisp up as crunchy as possible.
I distracted myself from the cooking scrapple and in turn letting it come close to charring by taking my last remaining of yellow cherry tomatoes from some salads earlier in the week. I knew they would make a wonderful addition to the sandwich. I checked on the scrapple after washing the tomatoes and flipped the slices once. I went ahead and cut the tomatoes into four mini slices to sprinkle in the middle of my sandwich.
Finally the scrapple was a warm brown hue and stiff as a board when I lifted it out of the skillet. I turned the heat of the skillet down to medium. I sat my pieces on paper towel to collect the butter oil.
I opened the store bought bread and I took each slice and buttered them on one side, while adding an additional pat of butter to the skillet. When all four slices were buttered, I placed them butter side down and slathered mustard on the exposed sides of the bread. Immediately, I topped the mustard with the cheese – again two slices of cheddar for slide of bread. There was a lot of waiting involved in making these sandwiches. I covered the skillet with a lid to encourage the cheese to melt. I had to wait two to three minutes until the cheese transformed from an immovable solid to a gooey liquid about to lose its form. At that moment, I added the tomatoes to two slices of bread and the remaining scrapple to the other two pieces.
I reached for the spatula and flipped the tomato-topped bread slice onto the scrapple-topped slice and pressed them together with the back of my kitchen tool. I flipped them once to see the other side and reveled at the darkening brown of the toast. I was still on this side of burning it.
I removed the sandwiches from the skillet and paused for a beat before slicing into the them diagonally. The cheese melted and slowly dripped out of the bread. I could not wait anymore.
I lifted a piece up to my mouth and enjoyed National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.
Then I thought, how in God's name in my 43 years on earth did it never occur to me to fry up some scrapple and put it in my grilled cheese?
I wasn’t even looking for any inspiration for my Grilled Cheese, because butter, bread and cheese are like getting three stars in Candy Crush Soda Saga. Anything is just extra.
However I stumbled upon this video in my facebook feed, How to Make a New Jersey Grilled Cheese, from NJ.com. I was serendipitously inspired for I had scrapple at home.
This isn’t going to be a recipe but just a story about making a wee labor of love.
I came home from work and took down my iron skillet, turned on the burner to high and let it heat up. I returned to the refrigerator and took out butter, extra sharp cheddar, Colman's mustard and scrapple. After returning to the stove with my cold goodies, I lowered the heat to medium-high and added a pat of butter to the skillet to watch it melt. I snuck back to the pantry and grabbed my loaf of whole wheat bread.
I prepared the cheese, shaving off thick slices for the sandwich. I ended up with two pieces of cheese per slice of bread. This was going to be cheesy. I continued slicing as I worked off two pieces of scrapple about an 1/8th of an inch thick. I added them to the skillet and let them cook, wanting them to crisp up as crunchy as possible.
I distracted myself from the cooking scrapple and in turn letting it come close to charring by taking my last remaining of yellow cherry tomatoes from some salads earlier in the week. I knew they would make a wonderful addition to the sandwich. I checked on the scrapple after washing the tomatoes and flipped the slices once. I went ahead and cut the tomatoes into four mini slices to sprinkle in the middle of my sandwich.
Finally the scrapple was a warm brown hue and stiff as a board when I lifted it out of the skillet. I turned the heat of the skillet down to medium. I sat my pieces on paper towel to collect the butter oil.
I opened the store bought bread and I took each slice and buttered them on one side, while adding an additional pat of butter to the skillet. When all four slices were buttered, I placed them butter side down and slathered mustard on the exposed sides of the bread. Immediately, I topped the mustard with the cheese – again two slices of cheddar for slide of bread. There was a lot of waiting involved in making these sandwiches. I covered the skillet with a lid to encourage the cheese to melt. I had to wait two to three minutes until the cheese transformed from an immovable solid to a gooey liquid about to lose its form. At that moment, I added the tomatoes to two slices of bread and the remaining scrapple to the other two pieces.
I reached for the spatula and flipped the tomato-topped bread slice onto the scrapple-topped slice and pressed them together with the back of my kitchen tool. I flipped them once to see the other side and reveled at the darkening brown of the toast. I was still on this side of burning it.
I removed the sandwiches from the skillet and paused for a beat before slicing into the them diagonally. The cheese melted and slowly dripped out of the bread. I could not wait anymore.
I lifted a piece up to my mouth and enjoyed National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.
Then I thought, how in God's name in my 43 years on earth did it never occur to me to fry up some scrapple and put it in my grilled cheese?
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